Hair transplant procedures have been carried out for decades. Initially, a punch was used to remove a circular area of hairy skin containing ten or more follicular units (of 1-4 hairs each). The area of hairy skin replaced a like area of bald skin removed from the patient. Several of such “plugs,” were placed into areas in the bald part of the head.
The circular punch tool was later replaced by a hollow powered drill and the space left in the donor area was left to heal naturally. Both of these prior art procedures allowed wounds to stay open for weeks at a time exposing a patient to the discomfort from large wounds measuring 3-5 millimeters in diameter.
Today there are two standard procedures for harvesting hair, the first involves a linear incision which permits the removal of a strip of hairy skin down into the fatty level of one quarter inch and measuring a number of square inches. The resulting wound is sutured closed and the strip is dissected into grafts (under a microscope), cooled in an ice bath or refrigerator and then transplanted into a bald area in needle size holes. Forceps grasp each graft and places them into holes in the bald area. In one form for dissection the hair from the strip of scalp uses blind harvesting of grafts from the strip of hairy skin which can result in significant damage to the hair. The damage occurs because the strip of hair in the hairy skin is forced through a cutting grid in order to make grafts of a predetermined size. The cutting blades of the grid are positioned at the most ideal distance between follicles. Unfortunately, the distance between follicles varies randomly. The result is that a significant number of the hair follicles can be damaged and die. The second harvesting technique involves the use of a microscope to dissect the hair from the excised scalp.
A third harvesting technique uses a punch which cores out from the scalp, the basic anatomical unit of hair, the follicular unit, which contains between one and four hairs each. The problems with this technique is that there can be considerable damage to the follicular unit as they are cored out from the scalp, one at a time because the skills to accomplish this are difficult to learn and master and the use of a sharp or dull punch to accomplish this runs into problems produced by the body's collagen which take on different consistencies with different people.